Real Estate Secrets: How to Flip Houses and Build Wealth

Patrick Odonnell (00:00)
And with my business, I’m not doing that. If I make you a deal and I make you a price and I say we’re closing on 30 days, that’s what I’m doing. So I’m keeping it real and providing good service.

Erika (01:43)
everyone, welcome to the Real Estate Pro Show. I’m your host, Erika, and today I am so excited to be joined by Patrick O’Donnell. He is a powerhouse in the real estate space. Patrick, it’s so great to have you on the show today.

Patrick Odonnell (01:59)
I really appreciate you having me on, Erika. Thank you very much.

Erika (02:03)
So Patrick, let’s dive on in. For our audience who may not know your story, give us the rundown. How did you get started in the real estate world?

Patrick Odonnell (02:13)
I was formerly in the restaurant business for 20 years and it was getting a bit old as was I. was about 37, 38 at the time and I knew I wanted out. I was going to buy a bar club that kind of fell sideways so I was always good with people and I like people.

And I thought, you know something, I wouldn’t mind getting my real estate license. So basically off I went, went out, the test, passed it, and I go, what next? And that was my start 20, 23 years ago, 24 years ago.

Erika (02:59)
Awesome. And today, what’s your main focus these days and what markets are you operating in?

Patrick Odonnell (03:06)
Okay, so for the first seven years, I started out mainly as a buyer’s agent. But in that time, because I loved the business so much, I started a franchise. And ⁓ if they were handing out gold medals for the worst time to open up a franchise, I was the Michael Phelps. I was losing my shirt for three years in a row. And ⁓ I started my own franchise, was called Landmark Real Estate.

And as much as people think the real estate market was going sideways in 2006 and seven, that actually started in 2005, where sometimes I was scared to turn on the radio because everything was just going sideways. I was losing $9,000 a month. It was a tough time and that continued that way for about three years and then I made some significant changes.

And I went from the big flashy office and down to a small office. And then I combined forces with another partner in my local area. And all of a sudden became a big player overnight. I went from 30 agents to 60 agents. And then it just led on from there. Then we ended up with five offices. And I spread throughout the state and different parts, downtown Boston.

Somerville, Westboro, and Quincy. And we were big players and then we had an opportunity to sell our business, our franchise, back in 2016 to Carrington Real Estate. They bought us up. I stayed on with them for two years. And then I decided to go on my own as a solo agent with Keller Williams.

And I’ve been with them since. Prior to Keller Williams, I started a flipping franchise, We Buy Ugly Houses, back in 2011. So that really trained me a lot for, because I thought if the real estate market goes sideways, I can always flip homes. And I’m not a real handy guy, but they taught me a lot, taught me what the mass of people want and all the rest.

Then I get into the flipping business. It’s kind of like having, I’d say a pizza shop and adding a roast beef sandwich to it if your pizza’s not that great. So here we are today and never look back.

Erika (06:34)
Awesome, awesome. And when you said that you got help with when it came to the flipping houses, were you talking about Keller Williams?

Patrick Odonnell (06:42)
Well, Keller Williams would help me out for that, but I would say more with ⁓ Home Vestors is the national franchise. We buy ugly houses and they really have a book on really this is what you need to do. You go to Dallas for a week on the training course, which I put off for like a year because I thought, I don’t know, I know how to buy a house. I know how to sell a house. I don’t need that.

It was a huge mistake. I should have done it from day one. Cause there’s a whole different animal and how you do buy these properties, how you get them, also how you fix them. And it’s not for your personal taste. So I learned all these vital things all along the way. And I, to date, I probably do about four or five homes a year. Probably, I think the last one I done was number 75.

Erika (07:37)
Awesome. And you you’ve with all your experience that you’ve had so far, what kind of advice would you give to someone who’s just getting started in real estate?

Patrick Odonnell (07:51)
First of all is choose for real estate. You want to choose a large company that’s going to give you lots of training. There’s no question about it. There’s multiple out there. Cobble Banker, Keller Williams, probably Real Brokerage. And somewhere where there’s an actual physical office to go to so that you’re surrounding yourself with other players in the office because…

You know, it’s like anything else. You don’t know diddly squad about real estate, right? Or any job. There’s training involved. All the, all the, and I’m not just because I work for Keller Williams, but they are very, very good at training newbies. I kind of wish I had went to them from day one, 22 years ago, 23 years ago. ⁓ The training is critical to your success.

Erika (08:46)
Yeah, yeah. And then as far as the flippy goes, what kind of advice would you give to someone with the unexpected things that come up? You you might have a supply chain delay, you might have a shortage of labor. So many things can derail a project, right?

Patrick Odonnell (09:05)
So the first thing I would do if that’s something I would do, would partner up and I when I don’t say partner up, mean tag along with someone who is an experienced flipper. Go out to their become their best friend. Do you know, do some legwork for them, do whatever, try and find them homes, but go out to their actual property.

Patrick Odonnell (09:35)
With anybody, know, what I want the most critical thing is, is knowing what the costs are. Knowing what the costs of windows are, what roofs are. I’m not a handy guy, knowing what the costs are. I’ve worked with the same contractor now for 14 years. So the key thing is if you’re new,

going and partnering up with someone, watching what they do, get your hands dirty and ⁓ do it with them either one or two jobs. be, they’ll be glad. I’d be glad to help anybody or train anybody for it as well because who knows down the line when they may present an opportunity to me or I may have too much going on and I can present it to them. So that was for me.

I only wish I had that opportunity to do that. I kind of learned the hard way. I had other partners going into it that I no longer have today, but I learned a lot in a short amount of time.

Erika (11:25)
Yeah. Yeah, Patrick, are you seeing any trends in the market and are you ⁓ leveraging them to stay ahead?

Patrick Odonnell (11:38)
⁓ you have to. You have to become creative. Like even with costumes and whatnot. I know it sounds kind of silly, but you’ve got to stand out from the crowd, right? You got to get your name out there. With the national franchise, I had to buy houses all over the state and whatnot. It was just the way it was. Today I don’t. I’m my own. I can pick and choose where I want. I’m picking.

local and I’m staying local. So I’m talking to local attorneys. I’m talking to ⁓ local business people. ⁓ The trends are today is I’m doing my own marketing. I’m driving for dollars, right? I’m not relying on AI or any of that stuff. I’m physically driving around neighborhoods looking for properties that are in distress.

and I’m doing my own mailers, I’m knocking on the doors and ⁓ I’m more of a boutique rather than a national. What I see a lot of happening, here’s a trend that’s happening today and there’s big companies out there going into ⁓ folks homes and they’re tying them up and they’re

Patrick Odonnell (13:05)
contracts and assigning those contracts, they’re leaving people sometimes. ⁓ They’re kind of leaving them in the dust if they don’t get a buyer for their property.

And with my business, I’m not doing that. If I make you a deal and I make you a price and I say we’re closing on 30 days, that’s what I’m doing. So I’m keeping it real and providing good service.

So that’s

the trend that I’m creating for myself and locally.

Erika (13:41)
love that. With all your expertise in real estate, have to ask every person that I talk to typically has a moment where a deal went sideways and you had to pivot quickly and change your plans. Do you have a moment like that that you can share Patrick?

Patrick Odonnell (14:01)
I certainly do. And it’s not that long ago. I had a property that took me quite some time to, ⁓ renovate permits, one thing and another. And there was, ⁓ there was an issue with the ⁓ water line. I had to put a new set up again and that was fine and dandy. And then I had to, they says an order for me. And this was the first.

in order for me to pass that septic, they wanted me to put in a new water line. And there was a homeowners association ⁓ that was very tight and very anal, probably had people on the board that shouldn’t have been there and they were not people friendly. So what should have been a four month flip turned out to be 10 months. So I eventually, and I put it on the market,

And I put it on the winter. I put it on during the winter months.

And it was just kind of one of those things where all of a sudden, because the market changes as much as people think every year, every three months or something happens on the news or rate goes up or something happens and it kind of freezes. So that happened with me with this particular one. And I put it on at a great price thinking I’m going to get this sold quickly. Well, it didn’t.

There was a couple of buyers that walked away from a home inspection for small reasons. think buyers remorse. So I took it off the market for two months and relisted it to show up new on MLS. And ⁓ it was the springtime, got the water line in, got all that stuff done. Had a buyer for it. Bing, bang, boom. The night before closing, the agent called me up and says,

Patrick, I hate to tell you this, but my buyers aren’t showing up tomorrow at the closing table. And I was like, what do you mean? They’re going to lose their deposit, right? 30th of the code, they’re not showing up. And I was like, I go, can’t, I can’t take this because I’m losing money on this property at this time, you know, if it went any further. So what do I need to do? So rather than, rather than.

getting all hot and flustered and yelling at the other agent and yelling at the attorneys and at the other people. go, I don’t want to keep the property. I want to move it. What can I do? So I was very simpler. I went back and I did ask, I go, what’s the reason? They go, well, the rates seem a little bit high. Da da da. I says, I’ll tell you what. I know we’re supposed to close tomorrow. I go, what if I give them another $5,000 off the price?

and buy the rate down for them with another mortgage broker. Would they be willing to do that? It’s another 5,000 off the price. I haven’t insulted them. I haven’t gone rah rah rah. I’m gonna sue you, blah blah blah. It worked.

The mortgage broker on the other side was like, I can get their rate down by another half a point, which brought their mortgage payment down from 4,000 to I think it something like 3,200 or 3,500 for them, for them, whatever way it worked, it can connect it with them and save the deal. So again, rather than honey attracts, you know, you catch more bees with honey than vinegar.

So trying to keep people together is key and that’s where the people skills came into it and it worked. They were happy, I was happy and we all moved on.

Erika (18:32)
Yeah, wow. ⁓ That’s an incredible story. How has that experience shaped the way that you approach future deals in ⁓ business now?

Patrick Odonnell (18:47)
Well, you know, in real estate, they’ll always say that until that check is cleared through the bank, there’s no real deal has taken place. So every deal presents itself with a different set of you can call it opportunities. You can also call it failures. So for me, I like to dot the I’s and cross the T’s. So

in deals moving forward, can’t, you know, someone could, I mean, it’s kind of, that’s a tough question to answer. But for a lot of it is you try and dot the i’s and cross the t’s before anything like that ever take place. That was a total curve ball. So I had no control over that, but I did save it. ⁓ Let’s say

⁓ were one of my weaknesses. I think we were talking about at the beginning of our conversation is I want to dig deeper. Now I do dig deeper now and asking questions up front too, so that these things may not happen. You can’t change everything, but the more questions you ask, the more you dig deeper. Having the right attorney making it a rock solid deal is what you gotta do.

Erika (20:12)
Yeah, and just thinking about what you were saying before when you completely changed your plans, you basically had to rely on your community and connections to make that happen. Patrick, what kind of advice would you give to people who are networking in real estate? How can they grow those relationships, get the relationships that they need to be a game changer, just like you with that deal?

Patrick Odonnell (20:40)
Sure. So I, I would say, I told you back in 2005, I was the Michael Phelps for wrong time to open up a business. But the one smart thing I did do was I started a networking group and any agent who’s coming into the business, it’s a key thing to do. So it was like a B and I group, business network international, but without all the swearing in.

I started it off, there was myself in 2006, a real estate attorney, a financial planner and an insurance guy. And there was four of us and we met in September of 2006. And the group is still going strong to this day, 20 years later, it’s called the Greater Boston Business Network.

and there’s 13 or 14 people in the group today. Sometimes in the group there was as high as 22 people and sometimes as low as eight. But from that group alone from referrals, I get eight to 10 referrals per year for one hour a week. So that in my business, the deal is $10,000 a deal. So let’s say a third of my business come from my

referral network group and I would say for any agent to go out there and do it. It’s not that hard to do. Especially, you know, the key people are who is hairdressers. Get a hairdresser in the group. They know everybody. Get a florist. I have a whole list and be happy to share that with anybody. A lot of my business goes through my mortgage broker, my real estate attorney and insurance guy and CPA. So these are great.

and are a great source of recommendations for you at the beginning too. So coming into the real estate new, this is a key thing to do. Key.

Erika (22:51)
totally agree. Patrick, what’s the next big move that you’re focused on? Are you looking to expand in new markets, take on larger projects or something else?

Patrick Odonnell (23:04)
Believe it or not, and you’re going to laugh at this here. Maybe not. I’m going to start doing podcasting.

I was on a podcast and I’ll go the reason behind it. I was on a podcast yesterday by a local. told you I wanted to keep everything local. And I was on a podcast yesterday with a local stager in my area. I go, and I looked at the set up and I looked at it I go, wow, this is, this is, I like this here. It seemed kind of easy. I’m good with people. I like to talk, blah, blah, blah. I go,

I am really going to start my own podcasting local. So before I was searching, I told you I go to bed with ⁓ a book, a piece of paper. So I tried every domain there was last night again to ⁓ on GoDaddy and half an hour before I was talking with you, I got my domain name.

and it is…

I just, I had it done. It was so quickly I got it. It’s, uh, your local guy makes it happen dot com.

Because I want to stay local and my tagline is going to be my logo. Let’s make it happen. And I am going to start that. I’m to start inviting people in and whatnot, because I’ll tell you, you, I was at open houses and there’s different demographics and whatnot in the business. I want to stay local. I want to be more on social media. I want to be more out there. Forget about all this AI crap.

I mean, it’s great and all the rest and I’ve invested in it for leads. But if I get one more call myself with hello, hello, and then hang up, I go, I just want to be, let me get in front of people like yourself, like Mike Hambright, who I’ve known Mike for many years, and be local and provide good content and get the local people on.

like my networking group, the insurance guys, the mortgage guys, the attorneys and all the rest and have a weekly presentation every week. That is going to be, in my opinion, one great, it’ll it’ll it’ll train me to remember I said my weakness asking questions. Now I’ll ask the the important questions. One, I think it’ll help me win the podcasting and two, I think it’ll help me in my business. So that is

That is and that just came out of there because I just see the real estate business changing before my eyes. It’s not the days of Erika give Jim Smith a call down the street or Bob Black or whoever it is. Give them a call and ⁓ those days are over. You got to be on social media. You got to be top of mind. You got to be thinking outside the box.

And you really got to at the end of the day, who’s going to give you that people, local people, because why would I take on business that’s two hours away? Doesn’t make any sense. Right. So that’s that is going to be that’s going to be my and I’m actually as much as I was excited about this logo, I’m actually very excited about this as well.

Erika (26:50)
Awesome! Patrick, before we wrap up, if someone wants to connect with you, learn more about your work, maybe even collaborate on a project, what’s the best way for them to reach you?

Patrick Odonnell (27:02)
They can call me at Patrick or go to Patrick and I buy houses.com my number 781 400 0003. They can also contact me at pato at KW.com and 6178212447.

they can go to yourhomeexpert.com, urhomexpert.com and look me up there. And that was another, if I had to buy that domain name for urhomexpert.com, it was a million dollars, I used urhomexpert.com. So just think outside the box folks and ⁓ I look forward.

to chatting with you, but I wanna thank you and Investor Fuel for inviting me on the show.

Erika (28:07)
yeah, Patrick, thanks so much for sharing your story and your insights today. It’s really awesome to see your love for local. We have a lot of listeners that really try to plug into their community, give back. They want to change what’s going on in their area. So we just love what you’re doing.

Patrick Odonnell (28:28)
Thank you very much, Jarek, and thanks again.

Erika (28:31)
For those of you tuning in, if you got value from this episode, make sure that you’re subscribed to the Real Estate Pro Show. We’ve got more conversations like this one coming up with operators like Patrick who are out there building incredible real estate empires. We’ll see you on the next episode.

Patrick Odonnell (28:48)
Thank you very much. Bye.